In the Still of the Night
by UnderTheDark
Summary: Shuttle crashes at the end of a mission, and who will doctor the doctor? Mal realizes that women ain't the only thing he leans towards... Mild preslash, hc.


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From a distance, it may have looked like a tiny star falling out of the sky, slipping through the clouds at a lazy angle and floating like a feather before touching ground out of sight in the hills.

For those on board the shuttle, however, the experience was much less tranquil.

"Wash, come in! WASH! Piece of _fei hu_!" Captain Reynolds swore at the sparking comm unit, at the shuttle, at the whole gorram 'verse for swatting him out of the gorram sky. The plan had been going so well...

He smacked at the console with his coat wrapped round his arm until the flames died down, and yelled to the back compartment: "Doc, this ain't a time for you to be getting the creases out of your fine white shirt, I could use some ruttin' HELP up here!"

No response.

"Doctor?"

More swearing tumbled out of his mouth as he wriggled out of the jammed harness and unsteadily made his way to the back of the shuttle. "Doc, I know that landing was a little rougher than you might of liked..."

Stops. Stares, disbelieving.

The doctor was not seeing to his own cuts and bruises. Not stumbling around in a daze or attempting to check the cargo. Not, in fact, moving. Pinned across the chest by a crate, leg bent ways nature never intended, blood a mask over half of his face...

"_Wuh de tien, ah_ don't be..."

Mal drops his coat and vaults over the debris, kneeling to press a palm against his throat. For one heart-freezing moment, there is nothing but tacky blood and cool flesh. Then, a beat. Another longish moment, and a second beat. Mal's knees go weak with relief, and he takes a slow breath through his suddenly tight throat.

:Alright. Let's do this.:

Get up, flip the crate, slowly, gently, watch the edge, shove it over, he looks so still, check the throat again, clear a space, lay out a blanket, dig through the _gohse _for the emergency medkit...

"Captain?"

Mal whirls around and nearly slips in the rubble. Simon is staring at him through one eye, the other still shut, clotted with blood. "Simon! I mean, Doctor don't move, your leg..."

"It's a compound fracture below the knee, I can feel the bones pressing against..." Simon clamped his lips shut and swallowed visibly. "Captain, if you wouldn't mind retreving my case before I pass out again...," still formal, still Captain-ing him, even in agony, why the hell is this wall between them so gorram thick that they can't even... "Captain!"

"What? Yes, o' course, I was just... where the ruttin' hell..." In a panic, he looks around for the doctor's personal case.

Simon slowly tilts his head towards the forward compartment, and winces. "By the door, right side... blue vial, syringe... passing out now..." His head falls back as Mal runs back towards the cockpit, promptly tripping over his abandoned coat and sprawling across the threshold. The case is two inches from his right hand.

"_Bai fa bai zhong_"

After injecting the doctor with the only blue vial in the case (note to self: pick up medical supplies on our next run) Mal looks down at him. There's still blood drippin' from a nasty-looking gash in his head, and the leg... he turns away from the wrongness of it.

:First things first, I'll clean him up, then I'll wake him up and we can deal with, with that:

Mal goes back towards the 'pit to grab his gorram coat and some water. He pushes the coat under the doctor's head and shoulders, trying not to jostle him too much and wake him. Doesn't do the best job.

"Captain."

Mal looks down and sees Simon... the doctor, starin' up at him calmly. He looks down at the abandoned syringe and then back at the doctor's serene face. Creepifyin'. Mal rips a piece off of the blanket, starts soaking it. "What was in that vial?" Wrings out the rag and kneels to put it to Simon's face, avoiding direct eye contact. "Oughta be makin' all manner of fuss, considerin' the state you're in..."

Simon keeps starin' right up into his face, not saying much of anything at all.

"You in shock or somethin'? Cause I need you to be together, gotta deal with your leg." Blank eyes, silence. Mal starts to worry (well, worry MORE). "Doctor?"

Simon's eyes flutter closed, but then he opens them up again and seems a bit more... there. "I'll be perfectly fine, Captain, provided that you can find something in here to splint this with. The neural pathways from the pain receptors have been temporarily suppressed, providing me with enough detachment to deal with the injury without passing out." He reaches up with one hand and takes the wet rag, sponging the blood out of his eye.

"It only lasts a few hours. We'll have to work fast."

Mal shoots him a look, then gets to work. After much wincing and straining on Mal's part (and more unsettlin' calm, courtesy of the doped-up doctor), they get the leg more or less set, wrapped, and splinted. Only takes about an hour.

Simon's not for making good conversation at this point, so Mal puts the blanket over the doctor's legs and moves back into the cockpit. Tries to make contact with Serenity, that colony on the other side of the moon, hell, anybody. No luck. He sets the homing beacon for Serenity's frequency and goes back to check on the doctor. It's starting to get cold inside the shuttle.

Simon's shivering already. "I'm starting to feel the pain again, Captain." Mal lifts an eyebrow, but shakes his head. No time for that. None at all. There's just the one blanket (who stocked this gorram shuttle!) so Mal just reaches down to pull it up further. Simon grabs his hand.

"There's a knock-out dose in my case. I'll need it once the pain gets worse."

Mal looks at down at him like he's crazy for a second, then starts rummaging through the medkit. "Why didn't you take this one once we finished with the leg?" he asks wryly, putting the syringe up to Simon's neck and pulling the trigger. He stands up and looks down at the doctor. "Dying for more of my delightful company?"

Simon gives him a lop-sided grin. "Not that your charms aren't... considerable, Captain, but I had rather hoped we'd be rescued by now. The two drugs I've taken aren't meant to be used in conjunction, so try to keep me settled down once I'm under..."

Startled by Simon's... flirting? it takes a second for Mal to register the last sentence. He frowns down at the smiling doctor. "Not meant to... meaning what?"

Simon laughs a little and slaps at the captain's ankle, missing by a few inches. Mal's eyes widen.

"Well, Mr. Bendy, it can make me anxious, make me... having bad dreams... falling into dark... deep, dark with stars under its belly..."

"Why didn't you tell me that before I... Mr. Bendy!" Mal shouts, but it's too late. Simon's already unconscious.

Mal decides that this is a perfect opportunity for more swearing and rakes his hands through his hair. He looks down at the sleeping doctor angrily, but his anger quickly dissipates when he sees the tremors of cold still shaking Simon's body. He looks around for something else to keep him warm, and then sighs heavily. Stepping around the sleeping form, Mal kneels down beside him. He lays down, careful to lean in enough to offer body warmth. No closer.

Time passes.

Mal tries not to think about the events of the day. Tries not to relive that sick feeling of vertigo he got when he saw Simon lying so still under that crate. He thinks of the crew, searching for them. Thinks on the cargo, the money it will earn them, the supplies they'll be able to afford.

:Medical supplies, don't forget the medical supplies:

The grocery list slows his mind down, makes him sleepy. He starts to drift off...

"NO! LET ME GO!"

He's shocked into alertness by Simon's shout. He throws an arm over him as he starts to thrash weakly, tears leaking out from under those dark lashes. "Hush up now, you're alright..."

"Please... no..." Simon whispers, starting to cry in earnest, body shaking with sobs. Mal tries to sooth him down, tries to rock him, racks his brain for some way to keep the doctor from flailing around and hurting himself more.

:What was that song Momma used to sing, always put me down so easy? Ah..:

Mal starts humming a soft melody, arm still held tight across Simon's chest, still trying to rock him back down into that dreamless sleep. The shouting stops, but the doctor is still shaking, tears slowly dripping down his cheeks. Those tears...

"In the still of the night... as I look out my window"

Simon calms gradually, breath slowing to normal as Mal sings, slowly, trying to remember the ancient words of Earth-That-Was, a fuzzy vision of his mother sitting by his bedside at night just teasing at the edge of his mind.

"At the moon in its flight, my thoughts turn..."

Mal stops, remembering the song. Simon's breath is slow, even, quiet.

"...to you."

Mal tightens an arm around him and slowly moves his head forward, nestling in the curve of Simon's neck. The rocking slows, gentles.

"Do you love me, as I love you?"

Is it his imagination, or is Simon leaning back, moving closer to him? Must be wishful thinking, ain't no way he's anywhere near approaching conscious. Mal looks at the black fall of hair hanging in his face, watches the pulse now beating regularly at the join of neck and shoulder, and shudders. Almost lost...

"Are you my life to be, my dream come true?"

He looks past Simon's shoulder to the view outside, the doubled moons just slipping past the dark hills. The light is fading...

"Or will this dream of mine fade out of sight?"

He feels a warm prickling behind his eyes, even as the song, as it has since he was a baby, pulls him down into sleep.

"Like the moon growing dim..."

His eyelids are heavy, weighed down with things he dare not examine too close.

"on the rim of the hills..."

He pulls the blanket closer up round Simon's neck and leans in closer...

"In the still..."

Lips just brushing against the nape...

" ...chill..."

Silence, long silence broken only by the captain's heavy sleeping sighs.

And Simon releases a tiny puff of air, barely a whisper...

"... of the night."

The two men sleep.

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_fei hu_: crap 

_wuh de tien, ah_:dear god in heaven

_gohse_: y'all know what that is )

_bai fa bai zhong_: Never fails. (lit. 100 arrows, 100 hits)


End file.
